


all the oceans put together couldn't hold me back

by see_addy_write



Series: Alex Manes Appreciation Week 2019 [1]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Unreliable Narrator, Wartime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-25 23:48:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18712192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/see_addy_write/pseuds/see_addy_write
Summary: “Good,” Michael’s voice praises him, and later, Alex will wonder if the stress of this op cost him his sanity, since he’s hearing his ex-boyfriend’s voice from half a world away and actually feeling proud at the praise. Jesus Christ, apparently, war fucks people up a lot faster than Alex realized.





	all the oceans put together couldn't hold me back

**Author's Note:**

> written for alex manes appreciation week 2019, day one: “daydreaming with a broken heart.” i played fast and loose with the prompt, as always, but i am fairly proud that this is under 3k! shout out to my sister for reading through it to make sure it was at least coherent, even though this is not her fandom, & to @soberqueerinthewild for helping me modify my original idea that was not working when i started to something that did. 
> 
> disclaimers: alex’s views on mental health are not my views; keep in mind, his state of mind is not great in most of these moments, & he tends to be harder on himself than is really fair. 
> 
> warnings: unreliable narrator, PTSD, war-time, generally poor mental health. set mostly pre-canon, with some future-fic at the end. as always, guys, it’s angst with a happy ending. 
> 
> title was taken from The Deployment Song by Emay Holmes, which was basically on repeat the entire time i wrote this.

The first time Alex realizes that the entirety of the Atlantic Ocean can’t keep him away from Michael Guerin, he’s in the middle of the desert on his first deployment, crouching behind a crumbling wall in an outpost. Ostensibly, he’s trying to find a safe place to work, but in reality, he’s really just attempting to keep the contents of his stomach where they belong, rather than splashed over the sand-covered floor.

Angry shouts in a language Alex only sort-of knows precede the rapid report of gunfire by a few seconds, but it’s still not enough time. His fingers move faster on the laptop he’d swiped from one of the empty rooms in the outpost; it’s covered in dust and the screen is cracked, but it’s functioning, which means there’s a chance Alex can hack into the communications network and get a radio message through to their back-up. He can rescue this entire clusterfuck op, can make sure his men get home. He can fucking do this; he just has to ignore the sweat dripping down his face and the shouts of screaming men and gunfire, and focus on the code. 

“We’re sitting ducks in here, Manes! You better have a fucking plan!” 

The bellow from Argent is nearly drowned out by the repetitive thunder of gunshots from his weapon, and Alex can’t spare a thought or an instant to respond. Being surrounded in an outpost in the middle of the desert isn’t great, but it’s a hell of a lot worse when there are only three friendlies, with the rest of their men at least a mile away with no way to know Alex’s guys are in need of rescue. Alex sucks in a lungful of humid air and focuses back on the screen in front of him, searching the flickering lines of code for a back-door entry to the communications array.

When Argent’s bellows keep coming, though, urging Alex to hurry, he lifts his gaze from the laptop screen exactly long enough to realize that the enemy is no longer simply shooting from outside — they’re in the fucking building now, and getting closer with every second. Alex does his best to swallow down the panic that swells in his chest, but his fingers shake on the keys in front of him, and his vision blurs. It’s too much — too much pressure, too much stress, _too much_ , and Alex has never been able to come through for anyone when it really matters. He’s not strong like his brothers, not heartless like his father, and this is not the life he should have had. His incompetence is going to get his squad killed, and Alex is sucking air into his lungs, but he still can’t breathe. 

“Since when are you the one who gives up?” The irritated, slightly mocking voice is so familiar, so real, that Alex’s head snaps around, certain that he’s about to find Guerin somehow in the middle of this mission alongside him. The thought doesn’t help the churning in his stomach or the panic still steadily mounting in his chest, but when he looks, there’s no one standing there. Another loud gunshot echoes through the room; closer, again. Closer all the time. 

“Come on, Alex, you’ve got this. You can do shit like this in your sleep.” Michael doesn’t know that — Michael doesn’t even know that Alex has been taking computer classes since he was in middle school, but it’s what Alex needs to hear, and the tremors in his fingers and knees finally start to ease at the reminder. He _can_ do things like this in his sleep. The communications array in these places are rarely even protected by a decent firewall; the real enemy here, Alex realizes, is himself. He _can_ do this, and he will. 

With a sudden surge of determination, Alex forces numb fingers to move, striking keys in rapid succession until he’s down to one stubborn line of code that just doesn’t want to cooperate. He hesitates at the sound of yelling behind him, but there’s a ghost of a caress on his cheek, drawing his attention back where it needs to be, and Alex doesn’t waste any time reminding himself that Michael can’t actually be here, that he’s probably hallucinating due to stress or exhaustion — because he doesn’t give a shit. The idea that Guerin stills cares enough to help him now is one that he desperately needs at the moment, and clings to it with both hands. 

“Good,” Michael’s voice praises him, and later, Alex will wonder if the stress of this op cost him his sanity, since he’s hearing his ex-boyfriend’s voice from half a world away and actually feeling _proud_ at the praise. Jesus Christ, apparently, war fucks people up a lot faster than Alex realized.

“Hey, stay with me,” that same, calm voice demands. “Take a deep breath and get this done. You’re okay.” Still half in the thrall of whatever psychotic break he has to be in the middle of, Alex obeys, hauling in more oxygen through his nose. As he does, the musky scent of cheap aftershave hits Alex’s nose somehow, over the smell of sweat and sand and electrical discharge, and for a moment, Alex is so sure that he’s _safe_ that his body believes it. His fingers stop shaking, his focus sharpens — and less than a moment later, he finds the right line of code and corrects it, and the distress call goes out over the radios. 

The other two men hear it and cheer, but Alex is too busy missing the phantom caress of a daydream on his cheek.

*****

That’s not the last strange, dreamlike encounter Alex has with Michael in times of stress — an no, that’s not something that he’ll be admitting to his military-appointed shrink anytime soon, thanks just the same. He knows that Michael doesn’t really come to him when he’s scared or in pain, is well aware that it’s a trick of his subconscious as it yearns for the peace and safety of home, which he’d always found in Michael Guerin’s embrace. Psychologically, Alex thinks, it makes total sense. And most of the time when it happens, he’s too busy fighting for his life or the lives of others, to worry about what this might mean for him.

The day that they lose Argent, Michael is there, a phantom hand in his and a muted, grieving whisper in his ear reminding him that Argent would kick his ass if he got himself killed, too. When Alex ends up hacking into a the controlling element for weapons of mass destruction while his team engages hostiles, Michael’s there behind him, invisible hands on his shoulders, murmuring reassurances and sweet nothings until the goal is met and his team is safely on their way back. That time, Michael stays until the others arrive, and Alex would swear he feels arms around him while he shakes apart when the urgency is gone and he can no longer suppress the panic. When his men arrive and the feeling of Guerin disappears, Alex cries. The guys take it as a sign of pain, and insist on all but carrying him to their transpo unit, but even in the indignity doesn’t quite manage to stop his tears.

Time and time again, as the slow, grueling years of enlistment pass, Michael is there when Alex needs him, and the latter comes to rely on that knowledge. He doesn’t forget that it can’t be real, doesn’t pretend that he hasn’t gone half-mad in these damn deserts, and on his worst days, he curses himself for a fool for treating this as normal when it’s obviously a sign that he’s just as psychotic as his father. But if Alex can’t have Michael in the real world, and if he has to be at war, despite promising himself for at least fifteen years that he would never take this path, Alex feels like he deserves this one, small thing. He’s not hurting anyone else — _only himself_ — after all.

*****

Alex doesn’t remember the explosion that took his foot and part of his leg. He remembers running when the tell-tale whine of an incoming bomb hit his ears, and the sound of panicked screams of the villagers and soldiers alike in the village. He remembers the images as if looking through a kaleidoscope; the brown of the sand, the blue of the sky, the open-mouthed expressions of horror and panic on the faces around him. He remembers his own ragged breathing and the strain in his muscles as he tries to make it out of the impact zone —

And he remembers the hand in his, dragging him along when he stumbles. “Move, Alex, _move_! Don’t you dare stop! Don’t you _fucking dare_!” Alex has never heard Michael sound quite so panicked; even when Jesse Manes took a hammer to his hand, Michael had only ever screamed in pained fury. Now, his tone is desperate, bordering on frantic, and somehow, if only to appease Michael and keep that sound from his voice, Alex manages to run faster. 

He wakes up in a VA hospital in Germany ten days later, sans nearly half of his right leg. The doctors tell him that there’s an infection in the residual limb, and that they’re worried about his fever, so he vaguely understands that he’s hallucinating when Michael perches on the side of his hospital bed. It seems so real that Alex allows himself to forget, just this once, that it isn’t. He wants to escape the reality that he’s going to be forced to endure for the rest of his life, and the only way that’s possible is with Guerin. 

It’s the only time he ever sees Michael in one of these episodes. Every other encounter, it’s just been his ghost, able to touch and be touched but never seen. Now, though, Michael looks terrible as he brushes tender fingers through Alex’s regulation-length hair, his own knotted and greasy, with giant, bruise-like shadows beneath his eyes. “Fuck, Alex,” he breathes, his voice so rough that Alex knows he’s holding back tears. “I thought — when we were running, I thought —

Alex steadfastly ignores that he’s talking to a voice in his head and squeezes Michael’s hand. It’s the good one, the one without the scars and damage inflicted by Jesse Manes all those years ago, and he’s grateful for that. With his mind woozy from pain meds and fever, Alex doesn’t think he could put that awful night back in its mental lockbox if something pulled it out. “Not dead,” he mutters, wishing he could make his voice louder. But his throat is dry and he’s just so fucking tired, and the barely-there whisper is all he can manage. “You saved me.” 

Michael shakes his head, so vehemently his curls fall over his eyes. “No way, Alex. You saved yourself. Just like always.” There’s a gentle touch at his brow, and Alex almost allows his eyes to close — but he’s suddenly terrified that if he does, Michael will disappear, and he’ll be left alone, staring at the place on his body where his right foot should be, and he doesn’t think he can do that yet. So Alex just stares at him, turning his head when Michael shifts so that he never leaves his line of sight. He drinks him in like a man dying of thirst, clinging to his good hand, and the soft kiss to his forehead makes his eyes burn with tears. “God, I love you,” he murmurs. “And I’m so fucking proud of you.” 

The tears spill over this time, because those are words Alex has never heard before, not outside of Maria’s joking proclamations or one of the guys’ sarcastic retorts, and he knows, in his bones, that Michael means it. 

That’s probably why he has to be sedated when the nurse comes in and Alex is left completely and utterly alone.

*****

Two years later, when Alex is back in Roswell and finally free of the military and his father, he curls into Michael’s naked body and buries his head in his neck, inhaling the familiar musky scent of cheap aftershave. It’s humid and dry outside, like a true desert summer, and the intersection of each of those circumstances sends him back to that very first mission, where he’d very nearly frozen and gotten all of his men killed. Alex swallows, the memory full of shame and residual fear, and Michael immediately tightens his grip around his waist.

“Hey,” he murmurs, and Alex turns his face up to look at his newly-reinstated boyfriend with a questioning tilt to his eyebrow. They’ve come a long way from those scared teenaged boys in a shed, and Alex can now look at Michael and see the man he’s become. Strong, brilliant, brave . . . alien. That last part doesn’t scare him anymore, though when Alex had believed there was a chance he could lose Michael to the cosmos, it had. They’ve done battle together, now, and not just in Alex’s head. They’ve faced down Jesse Manes and a serial killing alien. They worked together to bring Max Evans back from the dead, and reintegrate Rosa Ortecho back into society with a new identity. The two of them have a family, now, a real one, and it starts with each other. 

“I’m okay,” Alex says, half of his mouth lilting upward in a half-smile. “Just — remembering.” 

Michael shifts, running a hand down Alex’s bare back, and waits for the explanation. Alex considers a moment, then chuckles ruefully. “When I left to join the Air Force,” he begins, bracing himself for the instinctive flinch the words evoke from Michael. It’s a sore point between them even now, when they’ve finally sorted everything out, and Alex knows that only time will bleed the pain from those memories. “I guess I kind of — lost it, a little. Every time something went wrong, every time I was in danger, I used to . . . imagine you were there.” The tops of Alex’s ears feel hot with embarrassment, and if it weren’t for Michael’s arms around him, he’d probably try to pull away. 

Instead, he manages a crooked smile. “Don’t worry, I know that sounds insane. I just —” He shrugs self-consciously, not wanting to dive into too many of the details. It’s bad enough that he’s just admitted to his most closely-guarded secret out loud; he doesn’t need Michael to know exactly how pathetic he’d been. “I guess I just wanted to feel like you were with me, even when you couldn’t be. And it — you — saved me. Kept pushing me to run when I wanted to give up, the day this happened.” He taps his bad leg to illustrate, and hides his face back in the warmth of Michael’s neck, hoping they can just go to sleep and stop talking about this. 

Michael keeps stroking his back, slow and comforting, and there’s no judgement in his body language, so Alex manages to relax after a moment. This is what he’s needed for years; just Michael, holding him. The rest of it doesn’t matter, because as long as Alex can count on this, he knows he’s in no danger of truly losing his mind. 

He’s on the verge of sleep when Michael shifts beneath him, rolling so that they’re face to face on the pillow rather than tucked into one another. A hint of mischief sparks in his eyes, and there’s a tilt to his smile that suggests he knows something Alex doesn’t. When he finally speaks, the words are so familiar, so specific, that all Alex can do is gape at him in incredulity. 

“No way, Alex. You saved yourself. Just like always.”


End file.
